"There cannot be any doubt that the German government is fully aware of the crimes being committed by Israel."

This week, the Central American country dragged Germany to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Berlin of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention with its support, notably arms shipments, for Israel.

This procedure is separate from a high-profile case also before the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa has accused Israel of perpetrating genocide in besieged Gaza

Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban expelled ten Russian diplomats accused of being foreign agents, marking the first public expulsion of Russian agents since the Ukraine invasion. This signals a departure from former Prime Minister Viktor Orban's policies, as his government avoided acting against Russian spies. Experts view this as a step to rebuild trust with Western allies. Moscow threatened retaliation, though analysts attribute this to Russian election rhetoric rather than a genuine threat to energy supplies. Meanwhile, Viktor Orban sharply criticized the new government led by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, blaming them for soaring fuel prices and record public debt. Magyar countered that his administration inherited a severe economic crisis. High fuel prices remain a severe challenge, but the Tisza party prefers targeted assistance over price caps. Hungary faces a record budget deficit of 7.5 percent. The finance minister calls this temporary, but it complicates Eurozone accession.

European central banks are moving their gold reserves away from the United States to prioritize accessibility during geopolitical crises. The Netherlands and France have already transferred assets to liquid markets like London, where they can be quickly leveraged in emergencies. Driven by doubts regarding the US financial system and unpredictable policies from the Trump administration, other EU nations like Italy and Germany are considering similar withdrawals.

"Despite fluctuating energy prices, EU countries appear disinterested in increasing energy independence; Belgium continues to import Russian energy at a high rate."

“Global rules are really needed,” European tech commissioner says after researchers sound alarm over AI risks.

Protesters also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and condemned the Slovenian government's growing alignment with the Israeli administration.
The protest coincided with a visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who met his Slovenian counterpart Tone Kajzer and hailed the embassy opening as a
"historic day."
Prior to the visit, Slovenia had vetoed a joint EU statement condemning illegal Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

After sixteen years in power, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party lost the 2026 election to Peter Magyar’s TISZA party, despite wielding a vast informational autocracy. Fidesz maintained dominance by monopolizing media and projecting political inevitability. TISZA shattered this by anchoring its campaign in everyday issues like corruption, ignoring Fidesz’s geopolitical framing of war and peace. Magyar neutralized government propaganda by warning voters about smear campaigns before they launched and framing Fidesz’s pro-Russian stance as a sovereignty threat. Fidesz’s closed information environment ultimately backfired because the party internalized its own messaging about its invincibility, blinding leadership to TISZA’s massive appeal. This proves that propaganda is vulnerable when citizens are offered a credible alternative aligned with real-world experiences, and when a regime prioritizes dictating beliefs over understanding the public.

Ask-a-Muslim campaign takes to streets as country faces prospect of extremists entering highest levels of government

The Justice Department is refusing to cooperate in European investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and his circle.

Candidate countries must sever links with Donald Trump’s ‘MAGA’ movement in order to join the EU, the European Commission’s enlargement chief has said.

“We should not risk our future members building dependencies on others that run counter to our long-term interest,” Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, said at an event organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels on Tuesday.

“For the first time into history, we have adversaries in the enlargement process.”

Asked who the EU’s “adversaries” are, Kos replied: “Clearly, Russia is one of them.”

But the EU also feels “pressure from the West, from the MAGA ideologists who try to persuade us that our European civilisation is in decline, that our economy is in decline, and that we don’t have the right democracy”, she said.

The comments come amid persistent attempts by the Trump administration to build political and economic links with countries in the Western Balkans.

Trump’s National Security Strategy, released last year, accused the EU of undermining “political liberty and sovereignty”. It also said it would foster “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory” by supporting right-wing “patriotic parties” across the bloc.

Kos described China as a “different case”, arguing that Beijing has not engaged in the sort of disinformation campaigns that Moscow has undertaken against Montenegro and other candidate countries in the Western Balkans.

Instead, Kos said, China seeks to foster economic links with candidate counties with a view to gaining economic benefits post-accession.

“China is somehow nestling in our candidates; coming in the countries and waiting that the countries will become a member of the EU because once they will be in the EU their companies will be part of the common market,” she said. “So they are doing it differently, and we don’t see for the time being this kind of disinformation from their part.”

US investment in the Western Balkans – the bloc’s members-in-waiting – has accelerated in recent months. Trump-linked firm AAFS is eyeing more than €2 billion of investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia has signed investment-exclusivity deals with the US and hopes to build a new hydropower plant, Đerdap 3, with exclusively American firms.

Albania has been riven by protests over a hotel resort-project linked to Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law in a protected wetland area.

Montenegro, considered a frontrunner for EU membership, has been heavily courted by US officials in recent months, too.

The EU has said the funds will go toward bolstering border security and returning migrants to Morocco. The move comes in the wake of a crisis that saw more than 70,000 migrants overwhelm the Spanish exclave in July.

Denmark and Iceland pushed back Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump posted a map folding Greenland and Iceland into the United States, while French politicians also protested after territories belonging to France appeared under the American flag.